Safety

Tesla has been under siege for some time for a vehicle fire in Hong Kong which involved one of the brand’s electric cars. As a response to that, they have announced a fix for their flagship sedan and SUV.

Following an incident in 2016 which involved a Tesla S driver who was killed after leaving his car unattended in its so-called “Autopilot” mode, Tesla is in the headlines for another crash. This accident that happened in Florida, US, ended up in the unfortunate loss of the driver’s life as the responders were not able to open the fancy doors of the Tesla Model S.

Emirates Driving Institute (EDI) in the UAE announced the launch of its “Platinum Driving Course” a few months ago, where well-heeled customers can learn how to drive on a fleet of premium cars instead of the usual Nissan Sunnys. And we got the chance to go back to school to try it out.

The Emirates Authority for Standardisation and Metrology (ESMA) has announced that they will ban import, insurance and registration of used cars that are “grossly damaged” from May 1, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Swedish magazine Teknikens Värld, well-known for their “moose” tests that involve swerving a car to the next lane, then swerving back to the original lane, has performed these tests on a variety of pickup trucks, with interesting results.

The fatal accident which took the life of the 40-year-old driver in the United States is the first major accident that happened while a computer was at the wheel. The Tesla Model S which he drove was controlled by Tesla’s autonomous driving system, Autopilot, at the time of the accident, raising questions over the reliability of Autonomous driving systems.

You must’ve heard of Jebel Jais by now. Located in the outskirts of Ras Al Khaimah, it’s the tallest mountain in the United Arab Emirates, at about 1,910 metres. Saudi Arabia has an even taller mountain called the Jabal Sawda, at nearly 3,000 metres, but Jebel Jais has become a tourist spot for a reason — it has a perfectly-paved road leading up to the top. Wide, twisty and clear on a weekday morning, we decided to drive up and down that road in two identical cars. Well, identical in all but one aspect.

Cyber-security researchers Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller were in the news earlier this week after a Wired magazine story showed the two programmers access critical vehicle controls on a Jeep Cherokee that allowed them to remotely control critical vehicle functions. The Fiat-Chrysler group had already been alerted to the issue and were quietly offering a software fix to customers in a bid to not alert malicious hackers. However, Chrysler is not the first brand to be vulnerable to hacking, as Chevrolet and BMW were in the news for the same reason this year.